There were major increases in imports from the European Union (+$567 million, +22%), Mexico (+$508 million, +20%) and Canada (+$404 million, +19%).

According to the CSR, the countries seeing the largest declines in their export totals to the U.S. were:

China (-$729 million, -40%)

Russia (-$676 million, -42%)

Canada (-$294 million, – 4%)

Major increases were from:

the E.U. (+$ 395 million,+9%)

India (+$ 221 million,+58%)

Oman (+$186 million, +200%).

Last year, U.S. President Donald Trump decided to impose blanket tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, which applied to India, as well as other countries (such as China). India then proposed retaliatory tariffs against U.S. agricultural products, including apples and lentils, which experts believed would have had an adverse impact on American exports worth nearly U.S. $900 million.

However, India has continued to defer with respect to this option.

The U.S. president had given temporary exemption to several countries from the tariffs pending negotiations. Later, permanent tariff exemptions in exchange for quantitative limitations on U.S. imports were announced covering steel for Brazil and South Korea, and both steel and aluminum for Argentina.

The latest CRS report pointed out that one of the U.S.’s major concerns was overcapacity in steel and aluminum production led by China.

The U.S. had imposed extensive anti-dumping and countervailing duties on Chinese steel imports to counter the latter’s unfair trade practices, but experts believe the size of Chinese production continues to depress prices globally, according to the CRS report.